Distribution, Revisited

In this week’s edition of Build by Sefunmi Osinaike, we’re digging into:

1. How your startup’s best distribution channels might be hiding in plain sight

2. The 4-part framework behind every smart go-to-market engine

3. How Morning Brew reached 100,000 readers without spending on ads

Let’s dive in!

Back in Issue #7, we unpacked how TiVo, a home entertainment product, had the right product but lost the market anyway.

The reason was simple: They got locked out of key distribution channels.

They missed the partnerships that would have given them scale, and they made the wrong assumptions about how people buy.

That edition sparked a flurry of responses.

And a few of you wrote in asking, “Okay, I get that distribution matters. But where do I start?”

This is your follow-up.

Because while it’s easy to say that distribution wins, the hard part is knowing where to focus.

Every channel sounds promising when you are starting out and planning in a vacuum.

But most don’t hold up once you launch.

So here’s how I think about go-to-market planning in a way that actually helps you pick channels that fit.

The Four Types of Distribution (And What to Steal)

Most founders jump straight to tactics, but it helps to start with structure.

Nearly every distribution play falls into one of four buckets: Paid, Earned, Owned, and Viral.

This framework gives you a clearer way to audit what you’ve already tried, what you can do next, and where your time is most likely to pay off.

1. Paid Distribution

This is attention you buy. It is fast and scalable when targeted well, but expensive if not tested carefully.

Underused Channels:

• LinkedIn Ads aimed at job title plus company size

• Google Ads built around competitor search terms

• Sponsoring curated newsletters with a very specific audience

Case Study: Lemon.io

Lemon.io, a marketplace that connects startups with vetted freelance developers, grew its early traction by sponsoring niche, founder-focused newsletters.

Two key ones were:

• Trends.vc - a newsletter that breaks down emerging startup trends and playbooks for indie makers and solopreneurs.

  It attracts founders who are often in need of fractional tech talent but don’t have time or budget to hire full-time.

• Starter Story - a publication featuring real founder interviews, how-they-built-it stories, and practical insights from early-stage operators.

  It reaches both bootstrappers and funded founders actively working on products that often need engineering help.

By showing up consistently in these channels, Lemon.io positioned itself right in front of startup builders. The exact group most likely to need dev talent on-demand.

According to Lemon’s team, these newsletter sponsorships helped them drive targeted traffic, grow MRR past $400,000, and keep CAC below market averages during early scale.

2. Earned Distribution

This is attention you earn. It builds credibility and often leads to your highest-converting users. The downside is that it takes more work and consistency.

Underused Channels:

• Guest articles on trusted blogs or industry platforms

• Speaking on niche podcasts that reach your exact user

• AMAs or feature breakdowns inside Slack, Discord, or Circle communities

Case Study: Notion

Before Notion became mainstream, they grew by making their community the loudest channel.

Power users shared templates, wrote tutorials, and posted walkthroughs that got picked up on Medium and Reddit.

Notion doubled down by curating those same posts inside their site and linking to creators directly. That closed the loop and gave people a reason to keep sharing.

3. Owned Distribution

These are the channels you control completely. They are not tied to algorithms, social platforms, or ad budgets. They grow slowly at first but scale predictably over time.

Underused Channels:

• Educational newsletters that build habit and loyalty before the sale

• Lifecycle email flows that turn first signups into long-term users

• Interactive tools or calculators hosted on your site

• Documentation, templates, and learning hubs built around your product

Case Study: Ahrefs

Ahrefs generates over $100 million a year without relying on ads or social media.

Their growth engine is powered by fully owned content, like in-depth blog posts, onboarding emails, product tutorials, free SEO tools, and YouTube explainers.

All of it lives on their platforms.

By turning their blog and tool hub into a customer acquisition engine, they’ve removed reliance on third-party distribution.

Users discover Ahrefs through tutorials and free tools like the Website Authority Checker or Keyword Generator, and stay engaged through detailed onboarding and email sequences that keep delivering value.

This approach means Ahrefs is not vulnerable to algorithm changes or rising ad costs. Their owned channels work like a compounding asset, bringing in leads, activating users, and deepening product usage without chasing trends.

4. Viral or Product-Led Distribution

This is where usage drives exposure.

If someone uses your product and brings others in as part of the natural workflow, you are no longer the only one doing distribution.

This type of growth happens when sharing, inviting, or collaborating is baked into the core experience, not added later as a marketing feature.

Underused Channels:

• In-product invites triggered after users reach their first "aha" moment

• Slack or email-based collaboration that brings new users in automatically

• Referral programs that activate after a user sees clear value, not before

Case Study: Figma

Figma launched in 2016 as a browser-based design tool, entering a market dominated by desktop software like Sketch and Adobe XD.

At the time, design work was mostly siloed.

Files were stored locally, shared over email, and collaboration was slow and manual.

Figma changed that by making design multiplayer from day one.

Teams could work on the same file, leave comments, tag teammates, and share links, all in real time, inside the browser.

But Figma didn’t rely on ads to grow. It relied on behavior.

Designers invited teammates into files to collaborate, and those teammates invited others.

The clients joined to approve designs, while product managers dropped comments too.

Each new user brought in more users, not because of a reward, but because of the way the work was structured.

That loop created more value for everyone involved, and more reason to stay inside the product.

Over time, this created a powerful network effect.

As more people used Figma in a team or company, it became harder to replace. The product spread organically because every additional user made it more useful.

Builder’s Playbook: How Morning Brew Reached 100,000 Readers Without Paid Ads

Before Morning Brew was a media company with millions of readers, it was a college project.

Alex Lieberman, one of the co-founders, started the newsletter as a daily digest to help fellow business students stay sharp.

But they didn’t grow by going viral. They grew by doing three things very well:

1. They showed up in the right rooms

The founders gave talks at college clubs and business fraternities.

After each session, they encouraged students to subscribe by scanning a QR code or filling out a short form.

That helped them build location-based email clusters, which they used for segmenting and referral loops later on.

2. They built an early referral engine

They launched a student ambassador program with simple incentives.

• Share the Brew with 5 friends and get a free mug.

• Share it with 10, and unlock early access to job boards or newsletter features.

These rewards were cheap but aligned with their audience.

3. They optimized their funnel like product people

From the subject lines to the referral CTAs at the bottom of each issue, everything was tracked.

They constantly ran A/B tests and iterated based on what made people open, share, and return.

They treated their newsletter like a product, not a blog.

The result?

In under two years, they had over 100,000 active subscribers.

They built an audience before monetizing it. And when the time came, they had the leverage to turn attention into a real business.

🤖 Helpful AI: SparkToro

Each week, we spotlight a digital tool, AI resource, or business hack that can help you streamline processes and boost productivity.

This Week’s Pick: SparkToro 🌐🚀

SparkToro helps you figure out where your audience hangs out.

It shows you what podcasts they listen to, which accounts they follow, and which websites they visit.

It is useful when you are trying to plan partnerships, guest posts, sponsorships, or influencer outreach.

Instead of guessing where to spend your time or budget, you get data that points to where attention already exists.

Try it here

Audience Corner

Look at the past 30 days.

How much time did you spend building compared to getting people to actually show up?

Now check your calendar for next week.

Is distribution blocked in, or are you still planning to figure it out later?

You can keep refining features, improving design, or cleaning up copy, but distribution is not something that works itself out.

It requires the same level of focus, consistency, and iteration as product development.

Getting people to care, click, convert, and return is the hard part of building.

Make time for it, test often, and treat it like a core function of your startup, not an afterthought.

Until next time,
Sefunmi.